Sunday, August 24, 2014

Discussing Five Nights at Freddy's

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a new horror game from Scott
Cawthon which has become very popular in a very short period of time. The
player sits in a security booth at a children’s themed restaurant at night. All
through the night animatronic mascots roam the hallways and at times, come to
kill the player. The only controls the player has to defend himself are a
couple of doors on either side, lights to light up outside the doors, and a few
security cameras. Power is limited so the players different tools can only be
used for a very very short period of time.

To me, the gameplay boils down to sitting in a room, waiting
for death and hoping you...

...see it coming. If you look at your camera all the
time, you will run out of power. However, if you never use it, you will never
see it coming and will die anyway.

The problem is, once the scare/novelty factor fades away, it
becomes a game of timing and
observation. On top of that, there are a few ways
random death can occur at any time. Presumably, this is done to keep the
tension levels high for the player. (Something the game succeeds at.)

One of my favorite aspects is that despite being a truly
scary game, there is very little to no gore or violence. If the player gets
taken by the enemy, the screen shows a mascot up in the cameras face for about
one second with a bit of loud noise. Apart from that, two eyeballs can be seen
in the game over screen to communicate that the player has been shoved inside
of an animatronic suit.That is all.
Beyond that, everything is handled 100% with atmosphere. And what at atmosphere
we are given.

The atmosphere has been handled so well that there is a lot
of content speculation around the internet about some of the more ambiguous
features. At one point in the game, the player is treated to a phone call which
consists of low pitched garbled sounds. There has been a couple of videos attempting
to slow down, reverse, or otherwise translate these sounds into something
audible. (See videos below. Potential Spoilers.)

I think the reality is that the dev was planning to have one
thing happen in the call and then scrapped that idea and used the audio he had
recorded to make a mash up. However, the speculation to the contrary makes it
all the more fun.

Five Night’s at Freddy’s is made with flash and as such has
very low system requirements, so just about anyone can pick it up for five
bucks on steam and give it a go.

I have also read reports that Mr. Cawthon is working on a sequel.
Bravo Cawthon, for making the scariest game in many, many years.